I understand what you're getting at and essentially agree with it. But I think that the reason we say "there is no evidence for X" is because in the setting of this forum we are past that point. Among knowledgeable and intelligent people, it seems pointless to go over the issue of whether personal testimony is reliable every single time we discuss evidence in order to then move towards considering evidence that is reliable. That is why I like to use the word 'evidence' in the way it is used in the quote in my sig. Unreliable 'evidence' cannot serve to make an idea more or less likely to be true, so let's cut to the chase and refer instead to that information which can make a material difference.
Linda
I like lossleader's excellent explanation of evidence as well (I invoked it earlier in the thread) - the legal one - but it is worth remembering that law and science are rather different things. Legal cases are almost always subject to some degree of underdetermination - one can usually construct a different hypothesis to fit all the facts. The thing is we realize this, when a jury sits.
Now, my problem with the shortcut - and yes I think it makes sense - is it assumes the conclusion in the premise. Evidence is unreliable, so we therefore should ignore the existence of evidence? Almost all the evidence of modern science is at a logical leve l unrelaible - we know after all it is provisional, and subject to change at least theoretical based on new evidence - so is the fundie who rejects say all evidence for evolution on the grounds it conflicts with the "Eternal Word of God" logically correct? I would say not. It becomes a circular argument.
I'm painfully aware of the unreliability of eyewitness testimony - I have over a decade of quiet, patient experimental work in the area, and know the research literature well. I have also playfully made a spoon bend while someone held it on top of their head in fornt of audience of on one occasion 300 and the other 90 as I reall people - by trickery and misdirection. I've got people to witness fake ghosts, and explored how accurate their observations were (Tony Cornell gave me the idea with hsi pioneering research here.) I've used careful priming to set people up to see things, and conducted the interviews. Observations are unrelaible -I know that all to well. A search of the research database shows over 1800 papers in the psychology journals on eyewitness testimony and observation, and te problems thereof.
Buckout (1974) showed that given a staged attack on a professor, eyewitnesses scored on average 25% of the maximum possible score for recalling accurately. (Misidentification is rampant; it is interesting that one severe and scary problem is identifying members of other racial groups accurately in identity parades. Large numbers, I believe from one US project 85% of people who have been falsely imprisoned as subsequent DNA evidence has shown and were then released were convicted on eyewitness testimony.) Yet because eyewitness testimony is unreliable does not mean we can discount all eyewitness testimony. In fact, if I see a large brown dog attack a child, the odds are it was actually a large brown dog. With enough witnesses, confidence increases. If we simply discount all eyewitness evidence, we are in a ludicrous situation (see below) - it is a cause for caution, not rejection.
Another thing that I think is absolutely clear is that memories can be false. I'm sure we have all come across cases where something that seemed real to the witness subsequently turned out to be false. Yet generally, memory is fairly relaible - we should exercise caution, not reject the evidence of memory.
So let's take poodles. I said earlier i believed in poodles. If I said there was no evidence for poodles, people would say I was mad. Yet I can see no poodle here where i am - I am relying on my memories, which could be false, and my observations, which I know are flawed.
So while I agree that the claim "there is no evidence for X" is a shortcut, I think it is an extremely dangerous one. For example if my theory of how beliefs work, which I now know is not my theory at all but an established concept called heuristics, then the brain makes shortcuts all the time -and then uses those shortcuts as a basis for later shortcuts. Theoretically we can eventually program ourselves to not perceive the color blue, as i jokingly suggested earlier in thsi thread - out connections of axons and dendrites are configured in such a way to reject all evidence for that hypothesis.
So as usual I'm intensely cautious - mainly because I'm concerned the shortcut simply presupposes the conclusion. Many theistic argument si have encountered are completely nuts - does not mean all are. Many ghost stories i have heard are nonsense - but I can draw no wider conclusion. many atheists I have met are very reasonable people - but nothing in the definition to make that a requirement.
cj x
